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by Bhikkhu Bodhi
The most common and widely known formulation of the
Buddha's teaching is that which the Buddha himself announced in
the First Sermon at Benares, the formula of the Four Noble
Truths. The Buddha declares that these truths convey in a
nutshell all the essential information that we need to set out
on the path to liberation. He says that just as the elephant's
footprint, by reason of its great size, contains the footprints
of all other animals, so the Four Noble Truths, by reason of
their comprehensiveness, contain within themselves all wholesome
and beneficial teachings. However, while many expositors of
Buddhism have devoted attention to explaining the actual content
of the four truths, only rarely is any consideration given to
the reason why they are designated noble truths. Yet it is just
this descriptive word "noble" that reveals to us why the Buddha
chose to cast his teaching into this specific format, and it is
this same term that allows us to experience, even from afar, the
unique flavor that pervades the entire doctrine and discipline
of the Enlightened One.
The word "noble," or ariya, is used
by the Buddha to designate a particular type of person, the type
of person which it is the aim of his teaching to create. In the
discourses the Buddha classifies human beings into two broad
categories. On one side there are the puthujjanas, the
worldlings, those belonging to the multitude, whose eyes are
still covered with the dust of defilements and delusion. On the
other side there are the ariyans, the noble ones, the spiritual
elite, who obtain this status not from birth, social station or
ecclesiastical authority but from their inward nobility of
character.
These two general types are not separated from each other by
an impassable chasm, each confined to a tightly sealed
compartment. A series of gradations can be discerned rising up
from the darkest level of the blind worldling trapped in the
dungeon of egotism and self-assertion, through the stage of the
virtuous worldling in whom the seeds of wisdom are beginning to
sprout, and further through the intermediate stages of noble
disciples to the perfected individual at the apex of the entire
scale of human development. This is the arahant, the liberated
one, who has absorbed the purifying vision of truth so deeply
that all his defilements have been extinguished, and with them,
all liability to suffering.
While the path from bondage to deliverance, from
worldliness to spiritual nobility, is a graded path involving
gradual practice and gradual progress, it is not a uniform
continuum. Progress occurs in discrete steps, and at a certain
point — the point separating the status of a worldling from that
of a noble one — a break is reached which must be crossed, not
by simply taking another step forward, but by making a leap, by
jumping across from the near side to the further shore. This
decisive event in the inner development of the practitioner,
this radical leap that propels the disciple from the domain and
lineage of the worldling to the domain and lineage of the noble
ones, occurs precisely through the penetration of the Four Noble
Truths. This discloses to us the critical reason why the four
truths revealed by the Buddha are called noble truths. They are
noble truths because when we have penetrated them through to the
core, when we have grasped their real import and implications,
we cast off the status of the worldling and acquire the status
of a noble one, drawn out from the faceless crowd into the
community of the Blessed One's disciples united by a unique and
unshakable vision.Prior to the penetration of the truths,
however well endowed we may be with spiritual virtues, we are
not yet on secure ground. We are not immune from regression, not
yet assured of deliverance, not invincible in our striving on
the path. The virtues of a worldling are tenuous virtues. They
may wax or they may wane, they may flourish or decline, and in
correspondence with their degree of strength we may rise or fall
in our movement through the cycle of becoming. When our virtues
are replete we may rise upward and dwell in bliss among the
gods; when our virtues decline or our merit is exhausted we may
sink again to miserable depths.
But with the penetration of the truths we leap across the
gulf that separates us from the ranks of the noble ones. The eye
of Dhamma has been opened, the vision of truth stands revealed,
and though the decisive victory has not yet been won, the path
to the final goal lies at our feet and the supreme security from
bondage hovers on the horizon. One who has comprehended the
truths has changed lineage, crossed over from the domain of the
worldlings to the domain of the noble ones. Such a disciple is
incapable of regression to the ranks of the worldling, incapable
of losing the vision of truth that has flashed before his inner
eye. Progress toward the final goal, the complete eradication of
ignorance and craving, may be slow or rapid; it may occur easily
or result from an uphill battle. But however long it may take,
with whatever degree of facility one may advance, one thing is
certain: such a disciple who has seen with immaculate clarity
the Four Noble Truths can never slide backward, can never lose
the status of a noble one, and is bound to reach the final fruit
of arahantship in a maximum of seven lives.
The reason why the penetration of the Four Noble Truths can
confer this immutable nobility of spirit is implied by the four
tasks the noble truths impose on us. By taking these tasks as
our challenge in life — our challenge as followers of the
Enlightened One — from whatever station of development we find
ourselves beginning at, we can gradually advance toward the
infallible penetration of the noble ones.The first noble truth,
the truth of suffering, is to be fully understood: the task it
assigns us is that of full understanding. A hallmark of the
noble ones is that they do not flow along thoughtlessly with the
stream of life, but endeavor to comprehend existence from
within, as honestly and thoroughly as possible. For us, too, it
is necessary to reflect upon the nature of our life. We must
attempt to fathom the deep significance of an existence bounded
on one side by birth and on the other by death, and subject in
between to all the types of suffering detailed by the Buddha in
his discourses.
The second noble truth, of the origin or cause of suffering,
implies the task of abandonment. A noble one is such because he
has initiated the process of eliminating the defilements at the
root of suffering, and we too, if we aspire to reach the plane
of the noble ones, must be prepared to withstand the seductive
lure of the defilements. While the eradication of craving can
come only with the supramundane realizations, even in the
mundane course of our daily life we can learn to restrain the
coarser manifestation of defilements, and by keen
self-observation can gradually loosen their grip upon our
hearts.
The third noble truth, the cessation of suffering, implies
the task of realization. Although Nibbana, the extinction of
suffering, can only be personally realized by the noble ones,
the confidence we place in the Dhamma as our guideline to life
shows us what we should select as our
final aspiration, as our ultimate ground of value. Once we have
grasped the fact that all conditioned things in the world, being
impermanent and insubstantial, can never give us total
satisfaction, we can then lift our aim to the unconditioned
element, Nibbana the Deathless, and make that aspiration the
pole around which we order our everyday choices and concerns.
Finally, the fourth noble truth, the Noble Eightfold Path,
assigns us the task of development. The noble ones have reached
their status by developing the eightfold path, and while only
the noble ones are assured of never deviating from the path, the
Buddha's teaching gives us the meticulous instructions that we
need to tread the path culminating in the plane of the noble
ones. This is the path that gives birth to vision, that gives
birth to knowledge, that leads to higher comprehension,
enlightenment and Nibbana, the crowning attainment of nobility.
Source: BPS Newsletter cover essay no. 20
(Winter 1991-92). Copyright © 1992 Buddhist Publication Society
. Reproduced and reformatted from Access to Insight edition ©
1998 For free distribution. This work may be republished,
reformatted, reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is
the author's wish, however, that any such republication and
redistribution be made available to the public on a free and
unrestricted basis and that translations and other derivative
works be clearly marked as such.
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